third--sometimes of a taciturn and wholly uninteresting person--sufficed

  to plunge us into the most varied and engrossing of discussions. The

  truth was that we knew one another too well, and to know a person either

  too well or too little acts as a bar to intimacy.

  "Is Woloda at home?" came in Dubkoff's voice from the ante-room.

  "Yes!" shouted Woloda, springing up and throwing aside his book.

  Dubkoff and Nechludoff entered.

  "Are you coming to the theatre, Woloda?"

  "No, I have no time," he replied with a blush.

  "Oh, never mind that. Come along."

  "But I haven't got a ticket."

  "Tickets, as many as you like, at the entrance."

  "Very well, then; I'll be back in a minute," said Woloda evasively as

  he left the room. I knew very well that he wanted to go, but that he

  had declined because he had no money, and had now gone to borrow five

  roubles of one of the servants--to be repaid when he got his next

  allowance.

  "How do you do, DIPLOMAT?" said Dubkoff to me as he shook me by the

  hand. Woloda's friends had called me by that nickname since the day when

  Grandmamma had said at luncheon that Woloda must go into the army, but

  that she would like to see me in the diplomatic service, dressed in a

  black frock-coat, and with my hair arranged a la coq (the two essential

  requirements, in her opinion, of a DIPLOMAT).

  "Where has Woloda gone to?" asked Nechludoff.

  "I don't know," I replied, blushing to think that nevertheless they had

  probably guessed his errand.

  "I suppose he has no money? Yes, I can see I am right, O diplomatist,"

  he added, taking my smile as an answer in the affirmative. "Well, I have

  none, either. Have you any, Dubkoff?"

  "I'll see," replied Dubkoff, feeling for his pocket, and rummaging

  gingerly about with his squat little fingers among his small change.

  "Yes, here are five copecks-twenty, but that's all," he concluded with a

  comic gesture of his hand.

  At this point Woloda re-entered.

  "Are we going?"

  "No."

  "What an odd fellow you are!" said Nechludoff. "Why don't you say that

  you have no money? Here, take my ticket."

  "But what are you going to do?"

  "He can go into his cousin's box," said Dubkoff.

  "No, I'm not going at all," replied Nechludoff.

  "Why?"

  "Because I hate sitting in a box."

  "And for what reason?"

  "I don't know. Somehow I feel uncomfortable there."

  "Always the same! I can't understand a fellow feeling uncomfortable

  when he is sitting with people who are fond of him. It is unnatural, mon

  cher."

  "But what else is there to be done si je suis tant timide? You never

  blushed in your life, but I do at the least trifle," and he blushed at

  that moment.

  "Do you know what that nervousness of yours proceeds from?" said Dubkoff

  in a protecting sort of tone, "D'un exces d'amour propre, mon cher."

  "What do you mean by 'exces d'amour propre'?" asked Nechludoff, highly

  offended. "On the contrary, I am shy just because I have TOO LITTLE

  amour propre. I always feel as though I were being tiresome and

  disagreeable, and therefore--"

  "Well, get ready, Woloda," interrupted Dubkoff, tapping my brother on

  the shoulder and handing him his cloak. "Ignaz, get your master ready."

  "Therefore," continued Nechludoff, "it often happens with me that--"

  But Dubkoff was not listening. "Tra-la-la-la," and he hummed a popular

  air.

  "Oh, but I'm not going to let you off," went on Nechludoff. "I mean to

  prove to you that my shyness is not the result of conceit."

  "You can prove it as we go along."

  "But I have told you that I am NOT going."

  "Well, then, stay here and prove it to the DIPLOMAT, and he can tell us

  all about it when we return."

  "Yes, that's what I WILL do," said Nechludoff with boyish obstinacy, "so

  hurry up with your return."

  "Well, do you think I am egotistic?" he continued, seating himself

  beside me.

  True, I had a definite opinion on the subject, but I felt so taken aback

  by this unexpected question that at first I could make no reply.

  "Yes, I DO think so," I said at length in a faltering voice, and

  colouring at the thought that at last the moment had come when I could

  show him that I was clever. "I think that EVERYBODY is egotistic, and

  that everything we do is done out of egotism."

  "But what do you call egotism?" asked Nechludoff--smiling, as I thought,

  a little contemptuously.

  "Egotism is a conviction that we are better and cleverer than any one

  else," I replied.

  "But how can we ALL be filled with this conviction?" he inquired.

  "Well, I don't know if I am right or not--certainly no one but myself

  seems to hold the opinion--but I believe that I am wiser than any one

  else in the world, and that all of you know it."

  "At least I can say for myself," observed Nechludoff, "that I have met a

  FEW people whom I believe to excel me in wisdom."

  "It is impossible," I replied with conviction.

  "Do you really think so?" he said, looking at me gravely.

  "Yes, really," I answered, and an idea crossed my mind which I proceeded

  to expound further. "Let me prove it to you. Why do we love ourselves

  better than any one else? Because we think ourselves BETTER than any

  one else--more worthy of our own love. If we THOUGHT others better than

  ourselves, we should LOVE them better than ourselves: but that is never

  the case. And even if it were so, I should still be right," I added with

  an involuntary smile of complacency.

  For a few minutes Nechludoff was silent.

  "I never thought you were so clever," he said with a smile so

  goodhumoured and charming that I at once felt happy.

  Praise exercises an all-potent influence, not only upon the feelings,

  but also upon the intellect; so that under the influence of that

  agreeable sensation I straightway felt much cleverer than before, and

  thoughts began to rush with extraordinary rapidity through my head.

  From egotism we passed insensibly to the theme of love, which seemed

  inexhaustible. Although our reasonings might have sounded nonsensical to

  a listener (so vague and one-sided were they), for ourselves they had a

  profound significance. Our minds were so perfectly in harmony that not a

  chord was struck in the one without awakening an echo in the other, and

  in this harmonious striking of different chords we found the greatest

  delight. Indeed, we felt as though time and language were insufficient

  to express the thoughts which seethed within us.

  XXVII. THE BEGINNING OF OUR FRIENDSHIP

  From that time forth, a strange, but exceedingly pleasant, relation

  subsisted between Dimitri Nechludoff and myself. Before other people he

  paid me scanty attention, but as soon as ever we were alone, we would

  sit down together in some comfortable corner and, forgetful both of time

  and of everything around us, fall to reasoning.

  We talked of a future life, of art, service, marriage, and education;

  nor did the idea ever occur
to us that very possibly all we said was

  shocking nonsense. The reason why it never occurred to us was that the

  nonsense which we talked was good, sensible nonsense, and that, so long

  as one is young, one can appreciate good nonsense, and believe in it. In

  youth the powers of the mind are directed wholly to the future, and

  that future assumes such various, vivid, and alluring forms under the

  influence of hope--hope based, not upon the experience of the past, but

  upon an assumed possibility of happiness to come--that such dreams of

  expected felicity constitute in themselves the true happiness of that

  period of our life. How I loved those moments in our metaphysical

  discussions (discussions which formed the major portion of our

  intercourse) when thoughts came thronging faster and faster, and,

  succeeding one another at lightning speed, and growing more and more

  abstract, at length attained such a pitch of elevation that one felt

  powerless to express them, and said something quite different from what

  one had intended at first to say! How I liked those moments, too, when,

  carried higher and higher into the realms of thought, we suddenly felt

  that we could grasp its substance no longer and go no further!

  At carnival time Nechludoff was so much taken up with one festivity and

  another that, though he came to see us several times a day, he never

  addressed a single word to me. This offended me so much that once again

  I found myself thinking him a haughty, disagreeable fellow, and only

  awaited an opportunity to show him that I no longer valued his company

  or felt any particular affection for him. Accordingly, the first time

  that he spoke to me after the carnival, I said that I had lessons to do,

  and went upstairs, but a quarter of an hour later some one opened the

  schoolroom door, and Nechludoff entered.

  "Am I disturbing you?" he asked.

  "No," I replied, although I had at first intended to say that I had a

  great deal to do.

  "Then why did you run away just now? It is a long while since we had a

  talk together, and I have grown so accustomed to these discussions that

  I feel as though something were wanting."

  My anger had quite gone now, and Dimitri stood before me the same good

  and lovable being as before.

  "You know, perhaps, why I ran away?" I said.

  "Perhaps I do," he answered, taking a seat near me. "However, though it

  is possible I know why, I cannot say it straight out, whereas YOU can."

  "Then I will do so. I ran away because I was angry with you--well, not

  angry, but grieved. I always have an idea that you despise me for being

  so young."

  "Well, do you know why I always feel so attracted towards you?" he

  replied, meeting my confession with a look of kind understanding, "and

  why I like you better than any of my other acquaintances or than any of

  the people among whom I mostly have to live? It is because I found out

  at once that you have the rare and astonishing gift of sincerity."

  "Yes, I always confess the things of which I am most ashamed--but only

  to people in whom I trust," I said.

  "Ah, but to trust a man you must be his friend completely, and we

  are not friends yet, Nicolas. Remember how, when we were speaking of

  friendship, we agreed that, to be real friends, we ought to trust one

  another implicitly."

  "I trust you in so far as that I feel convinced that you would never

  repeat a word of what I might tell you," I said.

  "Yet perhaps the most interesting and important thoughts of all are

  just those which we never tell one another, while the mean thoughts

  (the thoughts which, if we only knew that we had to confess them to

  one another, would probably never have the hardihood to enter our

  minds)--Well, do you know what I am thinking of, Nicolas?" he broke off,

  rising and taking my hand with a smile. "I propose (and I feel sure

  that it would benefit us mutually) that we should pledge our word to one

  another to tell each other EVERYTHING. We should then really know each

  other, and never have anything on our consciences. And, to guard against

  outsiders, let us also agree never to speak of one another to a third

  person. Suppose we do that?"

  "I agree," I replied. And we did it. What the result was shall be told

  hereafter.

  Kerr has said that every attachment has two sides: one loves, and the

  other allows himself to be loved; one kisses, and the other surrenders

  his cheek. That is perfectly true. In the case of our own attachment it

  was I who kissed, and Dimitri who surrendered his cheek--though he, in

  his turn, was ready to pay me a similar salute. We loved equally because

  we knew and appreciated each other thoroughly, but this did not prevent

  him from exercising an influence over me, nor myself from rendering him

  adoration.

  It will readily be understood that Nechludoff's influence caused me

  to adopt his bent of mind, the essence of which lay in an enthusiastic

  reverence for ideal virtue and a firm belief in man's vocation to

  perpetual perfection. To raise mankind, to abolish vice and misery,

  seemed at that time a task offering no difficulties. To educate oneself

  to every virtue, and so to achieve happiness, seemed a simple and easy

  matter.

  Only God Himself knows whether those blessed dreams of youth were

  ridiculous, or whose the fault was that they never became realised.

  The Project Gutenberg EBook of Youth, by Leo Tolstoy

  This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with

  almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or

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  with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

  YOUTH

  By Leo Tolstoy/Tolstoi

  Translated by C. J. Hogarth

  ------------------------------------

  I. WHAT I CONSIDER TO HAVE BEEN THE BEGINNING OF MY YOUTH

  I have said that my friendship with Dimitri opened up for me a new view of my life and of its aim and relations. The essence of that view lay in the conviction that the destiny of man is to strive for moral improvement, and that such improvement is at once easy, possible, and lasting. Hitherto, however, I had found pleasure only in the new ideas which I discovered to arise from that conviction, and in the forming of brilliant plans for a moral, active future, while all the time my life had been continuing along its old petty, muddled, pleasure-seeking course, and the same virtuous thoughts which I and my adored friend Dimitri ("my own marvellous Mitia," as I used to call him to myself in a whisper) had been wont to exchange with one another still pleased my intellect, but left my sensibility untouched. Nevertheless there came a moment when those thoughts swept into my head with a sudden freshness and force of moral revelation which left me aghast at the amount of time which I had been wasting, and made me feel as though I must at once-that very second-apply those thoughts to life, with the firm intention of never again changing them.

  It is from that moment that I date the beginning of my youth.

  I was then nearly sixteen. Tutors still attended to give me lessons, St. Jerome still acted as general supervisor of my education, and, willy-nilly, I was being prepared for the University. In addition to my studies, my occupations included certain vague d
reamings and ponderings, a number of gymnastic exercises to make myself the finest athlete in the world, a good deal of aimless, thoughtless wandering through the rooms of the house (but more especially along the maidservants' corridor), and much looking at myself in the mirror. From the latter, however, I always turned away with a vague feeling of depression, almost of repulsion. Not only did I feel sure that my exterior was ugly, but I could derive no comfort from any of the usual consolations under such circumstances. I could not say, for instance, that I had at least an expressive, clever, or refined face, for there was nothing whatever expressive about it. Its features were of the most humdrum, dull, and unbecoming type, with small grey eyes which seemed to me, whenever I regarded them in the mirror, to be stupid rather than clever. Of manly bearing I possessed even less, since, although I was not exactly small of stature, and had, moreover, plenty of strength for my years, every feature in my face was of the meek, sleepy-looking, indefinite type. Even refinement was lacking in it, since, on the contrary, it precisely resembled that of a simple-looking moujik, while I also had the same big hands and feet as he. At the time, all this seemed to me very shameful.

  II. SPRINGTIME

  Easter of the year when I entered the University fell late in April, so that the examinations were fixed for St. Thomas's Week, [Easter week.] and I had to spend Good Friday in fasting and finally getting myself ready for the ordeal.